Two Belgian teenagers found with 5,000 ants in Kenya given $7,700 fine or 1-year prison sentence

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Two Belgian teenagers found with 5,000 ants successful Kenya were fixed a prime of paying a good of $7,700 oregon serving 12 months successful situation — the minimum punishment for the discourtesy — for violating wildlife conservation laws.

Authorities said the ants were destined for European and Asian markets successful an emerging inclination of trafficking lesser-known wildlife species.

Belgian nationals Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, some 19 years old, were arrested connected April 5 with 5,000 ants astatine a impermanent location successful Nakuru county, which is location to assorted nationalist parks. They were charged connected April 15.

Magistrate Njeri Thuku, sitting astatine the tribunal successful Kenya’s main airdrome connected Wednesday, said successful her ruling that contempt the teenagers telling the tribunal they were naïve and collecting the ants arsenic a hobby, the peculiar taxon of ants they collected is invaluable and they had thousands of them — not conscionable a few.

The Kenya Wildlife Service had said the teenagers were progressive successful trafficking the ants to markets successful Europe and Asia, and that the taxon included messor cephalotes, a distinctive, ample and red-colored harvester ant autochthonal to East Africa.

“This is beyond a hobby. Indeed, determination is simply a biting shortage of messor cepholates online,” Thuku said successful her ruling.

The teenagers' lawyer, Halima Nyakinyua, described the sentencing arsenic “fair” and said her clients would not appeal.

“When the statutes prescribe a circumstantial minimum amount, the tribunal cannot spell little than that. So, adjacent if we went to the tribunal of appeal, the tribunal is not going to revise that," she said.

The amerciable export of the ants “not lone undermines Kenya’s sovereign rights implicit its biodiversity but besides deprives section communities and probe institutions of imaginable ecological and economical benefits,” KWS said successful a statement.

In a abstracted but related case, 2 different men charged aft they were recovered with 400 ants were besides fined $7,700 each with an enactment of serving 12 months successful prison.

Duh Hung Nguyen, a Vietnamese national, told the tribunal that helium was sent to prime up the ants and arrived astatine Kenya's main airdrome wherever helium met his interaction person, Dennis Ng'ang'a, and unneurotic they travelled to conscionable the locals who merchantability the ants.

Ng'ang'a, who is from Kenya, had said helium didn't cognize it was amerciable due to the fact that ants are sold and eaten locally.

Magistrate Thuku during the ruling described Ng'ang'a and Nguyen's meet-up arsenic “part of an elaborate scheme.”

Experts successful Kenya person successful caller days warned of an emerging inclination to postulation lesser-known wildlife species.

Entomologist Shadrack Muya, a elder lecturer astatine Kenya's Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, told The Associated Press that plot ants are important for aerating soils, enhancing ungraded fertility and dispersing seeds.

“Ants play a precise important relation successful the situation and their disturbance, which is besides their removal, volition pb to disruption of the ecosystem,” helium said.

Muya warned against taking ants from their earthy habitats, saying they were improbable to past if not supported to accommodate to their caller environment.

“Survival successful the caller situation volition beryllium connected the interventions that are apt to instrumentality place. Where it has been taken distant from, determination is simply a likelihood of an ecological catastrophe that whitethorn hap owed to that disturbance,” helium said.